The Northern Ireland assembly would have to vote for Northern Ireland to stay in the all-island regulatory zone - before it took effect from January 2021 (when the transition period is due to end) and every four years afterwards. Johnson says in his letter.
This regulatory zone must depend on the consent of those affected by it. This is essential to the acceptability of arrangements under which part of the UK accepts the rules of a different political entity. It is fundamental to democracy. We are proposing that the Northern Ireland executive and assembly should have the opportunity to endorse those arrangements before they enter into force, that is, during the transition period, and every four years afterwards. If consent is not secured, the arrangements will lapse. The same should apply to the single electricity market, which raises the same principles.
This is an essential element of the proposal, but there are at least three potential drawbacks. First, there is no power-sharing executive at the moment, because it has been suspended for nearly three years. Second, this would give the DUP a veto; they would have the power to take NI out of the arrangements. (So would Sinn Fein, but they would not want to do that.) And, third, as the government briefing earlier revealed (see 4.16pm), it is not very clear what would happen if the NI assembly did vote to abandon the arrangement. After a year NI would default to “existing rules”, but that begs the question as to what new arrangements might be needed at the border.
Johnson accepts that goods going between Ireland and Northern Ireland would be subject to customs rules, but he claims there would be no need for checks at or near the border. In his letter he says:
We are proposing that all customs processes needed to ensure compliance with the UK and EU customs regimes should take place on a decentralised basis, with paperwork conducted electronically as goods move between the two countries, and with the very small number of physical checks needed conducted at traders’ premises or other points on the supply chain.
And he also also admitted that the customs arrangements for goods crossing the north/south Irish border would involve some physical checks. The explanatory note says goods would be imported or exported via a transit mechanism or a prior declaration mechanism. It does on:
Under either process the relevant customs authority will be notified that the consignment has entered their customs territory. Either mechanism would link the movement of the consignment over the border with the information provided to the customs authority, which could identify any goods requiring customs interventions. Physical checks – which would continue to be required only on a very small proportion of movements based on risk assessment – could then take place at traders’ premises or other designated locations which could be located anywhere in Ireland or Northern Ireland.
The note says there would be no need for checks to take place “at, or even near” the border. But the concern in Ireland is that customs officials and customs centres could become a target for terrorists, wherever they are.
